Traumatizing Kingdom Hall Experience

I’m a ex JW (28 years old) who was born into the organization, I’m the fourth generation in my family to grow up within the organization so you could imagine my entire family has been pretty indoctrinated into this cult since the 1940’s. My entire family has been consumed by this organization and I’ve been shunned since I was 17 when I pointed out to my family the freemasonry background of the organization and how i didn’t trust the governing body. Once I was kicked out I was thrown into the “world” without the ability to process anything that I had experienced as a child and how fucking evil the organization could be.

Recently I’ve been processing this experience of a beloved Elder who dropped dead during a Sunday service when I was 8 years old. Like any other service, the Brother was giving his talk and started sluring his words during the talk. Instead of anyone stopping him he kept stumbling over his talk incoherently until he took a step back from the podium and literally fell back with his eyes rolling back in his head. He had a massive heart attack infront of the entire congregation with his entire family including his granddaughter who was younger than me at the time. The whole congregation went silent, a Sister ran up too him to check his pulse and she turn pale. Everyone knew he was gone, for 5 mins they stood around his body on the stage until the decision was made to drag this man’s lifeless 6’5 ft body down the podium, down the hall, and to the back room to continue the meeting and finish the watchtower. As a kid, it just felt surreal and I couldn’t process it, I felt so empty and sad that I couldn’t feel anything. Everyone was crying even my mom and even thru the grief, everyone still stayed and finished out the Watchtower crying and all. Like nothing happened and nobody addressed his condition. It infuriates me to think back to that Elder talks and beautiful moments I had with his family and just the lack of respect or empathy for the congregation. They treated this man who dedicated his entire legacy and family to an organization just to be dragged from the podium like a sack of potatoes infront of the entire Sunday service.

My heart goes out to that Elder who was such an amazing speaker and loving brother, he didn’t deserve that at all and I think about him and his family so much till this day.